A Writer's Woes
by strawnilla
Summary: Writers go through a lot of sufferings. King knows this first-hand.


and then my second spajo! this one's in a high school au because i love high school aus : " )

* * *

King stopped in his tracks, his eyes reading the words on the poster that caught his attention on his way out of the school building.

 _Writing Contest!_

His heart thumped.

Without him realizing, his feet had brought him to the wall, his fingers tracing the embossed letters and he sighed. King stared at the poster, the conditions and requirements to enter said competition. He's qualified enough, alright. Should he…?

"Oi, King, hurry up!" a familiar voice from up the hallway called for him. He turned his head, catching sight of spiky white hair in the distance, and sighed. He quickly made his way towards the other party, feeling exasperated by his friend.

"You have no patience huh, Jack?"

"You're the one who's so slow! I want to get curry! Curry!"

"But we just had lunch?!"

"There's always room for curry!" Jack said with a grin, his blue eyes twinkling as he looked at King. The long-haired teen furrowed his eyebrows before he sighed fondly at Jack's enthusiasm. "Alright, alright, let's go get curry." He paused for a moment. "It's your treat though."

"EH?!" Jack exclaimed. "I was hoping that you'd…!"

"HA?! What gave you the idea that I would?!"

"B-But my allowance this month is…!"

King stopped short. Jack was giving him the puppy dog eyes again and he really wanted to hurl. He tried looking away but Jack only came closer, his hands clasped together and the surely fake tears in his eyes getting bigger.

"King, please…?"

"…Urgh."

He gave in.

He was sure he was going to regret it.

So off they went to get curry, with Jack acting like an excited puppy the entire time, and King trying hard not to burst from the ridiculous adorableness that his friend was emitting. Sure, Jack was an annoying dork, but a good-looking annoying dork. King was almost not surprised he stuck this long.

At one point while they were eating in the restaurant, Jack had laughed so hard at some joke he cracked that he basically squished himself right next to King and King found himself staring at Jack in surprise. He hadn't thought much of it, but then he realized he wasn't just staring… his heart was also thumping, the same way it had earlier when he saw the poster, but faster and louder.

It also felt like the world around them had turned into sparkles and muted mumbling from side background characters that nobody gives a damn about.

 _I could've just refused him earlier_ , King thought to himself. _But as if I could. When it's him asking, the word 'no' almost seems nonexistent between us. Just like how it has always been since we were children. Maybe he is a little spoilt, but it's not bad at all. In fact, it's at that level on the meter where it's… cute. Endearing, even._

 _One can almost say that he has me wrapped around his finger… and I don't have much proof to exclaim otherwise. But it's not like I mind… as long as I… get to spend more time with him._

 _And looking back, this situation… taken out of context, it does seem rather romantic, does it not? It's like… like we're on a date. Would it be too much to call it one? A date. The word is appealing, as much as the idea of dating this guy is tempting as well._

He almost dropped a spoonful of curry in Jack's face at what he just wrote in his mind.

What in the _fuck_ was that?

King blinked owlishly into the distance, still not being able to find an inch inside of him wanting to believe that he just wrote something _that_ … romantic? Deep? Emotional?!

Jack stopped laughing and finally noticed that his friend was experiencing a mid-life dilemma or something, and poked King in the cheek with a finger. "Oi, King, you okay? You look constipated."

Ah yes, _very_ romantic.

He shoved Jack away and grumbled. "I'm fine. Finish your curry rice already, I want to go home."

Jack stuck his tongue out at him but resumed eating. Phew. King was safe, for now.

Later in the safety of his room, King lamented on his thought process from earlier, and completely berated himself for them. What in the world?! Did he really thought all of that? From the bottom of his heart, or was it just his writer instincts taking over, reading the situation and interpreting it into a romance passage?

…How was that any better?!

He needed to do something about this. He couldn't let his heart overtake his mind. He hadn't written anything in ages, either, so he partially blamed that…

King sat up in bed and took out his laptop from underneath. It was a bit dusty, signaling its disuse. Before he could change his mind, he turned it on, entered the password and quickly clicked open a blank Microsoft Word document.

And it stayed blank for the next five minutes.

King grumbled into his hands. It was already like, 9PM or something, and he needed to sleep soon because he had school, but damn it all he also needed to write this just as badly. But for the life of him, he couldn't find a sentence to start with.

Heck, he wasn't even sure if he even had a plot!

The teen untied his long locks of hair and retied it in frustration, slowly getting even more irritated that his dumb mind could work while he was on a da— _outing_ with Jack, but not when he literally had his laptop in his lap with his fingers ready to type away.

Gee, what to do, what to do…

King's purple eyes scanned his room, noticing and taking inventory of every item inside of it. There were some of his plush animals on his bed, his make-up set on the dressing table with other necessities, his wardrobe filled with the clothes of his preferred style, pretty glass ornaments and decorations on the shelves, the window that gave the view of the wondrous night sky, and a number of pictures he taped onto the wall in front of his study desk.

He noticed one particular 'picture' was of a joker card from a set of playing cards, almost hidden from view by a stack of books, with the joker looking like a clown or a jester posing in an almost evil-like laugh. He didn't remember taping that there. Then, with a slow realization, he thought that it was probably Jack's doing from one of his visits before…

Was it a form of a prank? Probably.

King pushed his large glasses up his nose and turned back to the laptop in his hands.

 _Most people heard of him, but the only ones who have seen him… well, there weren't many to speak of. No, he didn't kill. It was against his rules. A life is the most important treasure, after all. But what he did was, and he did it fantastically, was to make miracles beyond comprehension._

 _Hush now and listen, to the great and wonderful tale of the mysterious but alluring, Phantom Thief Joker…_

* * *

You'd think he would have skipped school after looking like a truck ran over him and then decided to call a buddy steamroller to finish the job, but no. He was stubborn. He even fell asleep on his laptop last night while writing something mid-sentence and practically woke up at three in the freaking morning!

Urgh, bad habits. This was probably among the reasons he stopped writing in the first place. It cut into his beauty sleep time.

And, catching a sight of his reflection in a parked car's window, he really needed it.

"W-Whoa, what the heck?!" Jack's voice echoed in his ears, sounding very much surprised and in disbelief. "K-King, is that you?!"

When he turned to look at Jack, all he could see was the utter bewilderment in his face.

"No, can't be. The King I know wouldn't even leave the house without at least BB Cream on."

"Oh shut up." He grumbled under his breath, his head pounding slightly. "Actually, I'm even more surprised you know what BB Cream is. And just so you know, I do have it on right now."

Jack came up to walk beside him with a shrug. "I hang with you, I'm bound to learn things. So, what's up with the eye bags?" a sudden mischievous grin graced his face. "Were you out all night doing…?" and here he wriggled his eyebrows, as if to suggest something completely immoral and lascivious.

King hit Jack's head with his bag for that.

"OW!"

"That serves you right for thinking that I would do obscene things."

"Who knows?! Even best friends keep secrets from each other!"

King could see the school coming into view as they walked. He was really, really tired, and he wanted nothing more than to turn back now and get some sleep in his nice comfy bed. But instead he quickly rummaged his bag and produced a folder filled with a thick assembly of stapled papers.

He shoved said folder into Jack's hands.

"Here, for treating you yesterday I want you to proofread my entry for the school's writing contest before I submit it."

"…Wait, what?"

"The deadline is the day after tomorrow, so chop chop!"

"Wait… WAIT, KING!"

* * *

 _Ah… sleep. Sleep is the most wonderful thing, a blessing to this Earth, a gift God bestowed upon us for so many reasons. Among those reasons is to let us look fresh for the day, which is probably my favourite reason. And yet, sleep can also be charming in other ways, like how dreams are an escape from reality, and how time flies when you're not awake to see it pass._

 _Yes, sleep, my new favourite thing in the world._

You'd think he'd stop with the monologue in his bloody head once he turned on the fan and hit the sofa after a long day of school. Urgh. He just wanted some actual sleep, not some romantic cheesy passage _about_ it.

And maybe he did get some sleep after all, because before he knew it he was waking up to the alarmingly gradually annoying ringing of the doorbell. From the looks of the orange hued walls, floor and furniture, King immediately assumed he slept all the way to sunset.

Or in a worst case scenario, he had slept to the next morning.

"I'm coming!" he grumpily replied when the ringing didn't stop, wiping the sleep out of his eyes as he blindly walked into the hallway and towards the door.

He opened the door to Jack, who let go a sigh of relief.

"Thank God, I thought you died in there or something. You didn't answer my calls or texts."

It took a few moments for King to answer properly. "…I was asleep."

"Of course."

"What brings you over here?" King asked to which Jack replied by revealing a familiar folder with an unreadable expression on his face. King stared at it for a while. "Oh, you're done already?"

Jack nodded.

"Then, let's go to my room to talk then."

Jack obeyed without a single word, and for obvious reasons, his behaviour struck to King as being totally, without a doubt, weird. The blue-eyed teen was obviously not being himself, and who wouldn't be worried?

"Oi, are you okay? You seem a bit off."

Jack looked up, his face still unreadable, and shrugged. "I'm probably just tired or something."

"Uh-huh… Want some coffee?"

"Nah, I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"It feels like you're the one who's in need of that coffee."

"Yeah, but I don't drink coffee."

At this, a small smile finally appeared on Jack's face. "You only ever drink tea."

That smile and that statement should not have made King's heart do a bungee jump in his chest.

They managed to get into King's room without another incident, bless the heavens. He had a small round table in his room, to sit on the floor with, and that was where the two teens set camp. Jack had looked pretty serious about the business since he arrived, and now King was beginning to realize that he was nervous about what Jack had to say regarding his story.

He gulped.

"So, let me clarify. The main character is called Kaitou Joker?"

"Yes."

"That's not his real name, right?"

"I suppose."

"He has a rival, who is also a love interest, by the name Kaitou Spade?"

"Yes."

"When exactly did you write this?"

"Last night."

"All of it?"

"All of it. I fell asleep midway, I think, and finished it at… four in the morning?"

God, he felt like he was sitting for a job interview. Or with a publisher who was judging whether or not it'd be worth it to turn his manuscript into a book. Whichever option, both was nerve-wrecking.

Jack seemed astounded for a moment, before he recollected himself with a cough. "Okay, well, in the first page…"

Things began then, with Jack showing him where the typos were, what sentences didn't feel right or confused him, grammar mistakes and the likes. He was a surprisingly okay proofreader, much to King's pleasant surprise. But Jack always did have a surprise or two up his sleeve. And maybe his subconscious knew that, and that's why he asked Jack to proofread it for him.

"The next pages are… noticeably laden with more mistakes than the first ones."

King shrugged at that. "Must be the point where I dozed off."

"I can't believe you dozed off in the middle of Joker's imminent demise."

"Hey, I was tired! I probably wrote some weird stuff in that area didn't I? Like about chipmunks or gophers, it happens when I write half-asleep!"

Jack laughed at that. "Okay, okay. There were no such things like chipmunks or gophers or skunks. But answer me this, does Spade know Joker's real name or no?"

King paused for a while. "Uh… no? I'm not even sure I gave Joker a 'real name'."

When he said that, Jack's grin seemed to have gotten wider somehow. No, not wider… more mischievous? Amused? Like he was holding back a secret of sorts?!

"W…Why are you smiling like that…?"

"Ah, well, King, you see… everyone knows that the early wee hours of the morning is the best time to get a secret out of someone."

"Yeah…?"

Jack flipped a page of the 'manuscript' that had been butchered and vandalized by Jack's writings, notes and markings, to the next page where King managed to catch a glimpse of something circled in red pen—everything else were mostly just underlines.

"Read it." Jack said.

He did.

He went through the first few lines in a daze, recognizing mistakes here and there, and placing exactly where the event in the writings took place in the story. "Ah… this is where they almost killed Joker and he was bleeding out in Spade's arms." He commented, but no sooner than he said that…

He saw it.

It was what Jack circled in red ink, something that Spade said to Joker in an almost silent plea…

King remembered the line he intended to write clearly in his head. _I'm in love with you, Joker._ But no, what King wrote instead was, to his horrifying realization… _I'm in love with you, Jack._

Oh. My. God.

He wanted to scream and lash out and kick Jack out of his room. He wanted to tear the papers into tiny pieces and burn them until there was no evidence left of their existence. He wanted to get his laptop immediately to delete the entire word doc and maybe delete his memory too while he's at it, if that's possible.

But instead he blushed. Right there, in front of Jack. There was literally no way to deny it then.

King covered his face as quickly as he could as he tried to stutter out an explanation. "T-That's…! I was sleepy! I didn't know what I was typing and I…" _I guess I must have thought about you at some point while writing that I wrote your name instead._

… _Oh who am I kidding, it's so obvious that Joker was based off of Jack and Spade off of me. Even he's not dumb enough to miss it._

"Oh God, I'm s-so sorry you had to find out like t-this. I just…" King was still stuttering, and Jack was still silent, and it was honestly really starting to scare King to Hell and back. Oh wow, was this the reason why Jack seemed so unreadable earlier? That he was uncomfortable with the thought that his best friend and rival was in love with him?

"King…" Jack's voice called out for him softly, and a pair of hands gently pried his own hands away from his face. He still tried to hide though, this time by looking away and not meeting Jack's eyes (the only pair of eyes that he had ever been weak to).

"Hey, King, come on… Look at me, please?"

"I… I don't want to."

"What if I tell you I feel the same way?"

King almost got whiplash. He stared at Jack's bright blue eyes and smile, his jaw dropping slightly as his eyes blinked like an owl's. It could very likely be a joke… but from the many years of knowing him, King knew for a fact that Jack wouldn't joke over feelings.

"What…?"

Jack, still holding onto King's hands, squeezed them. He inched close enough to let their foreheads touch and King's blush came back full force at their close proximity. Jack chuckled too, despite the pink visible in his cheeks. "At first… when I read what you gave me, I thought you were pulling a trick on me. But then when I got here, I realized that you weren't. You just made an honest mistake. A really, really cool honest mistake."

King's heart did a somersault and a trampoline jump. "So that means…?"

"Yeah. I'm in love with you too," and Jack's grin got a little bit wider as he said this, "Kaitou Spade."


End file.
